WARNING: :-o :-o :-o
I received an e-mail from "Washington Mutual", I believe, WAMU was their logo, when I looked them up in the Internet.

The e-mail said that to check "parity" on my account to please "click" on the link provided (by them) below. I did not "click" since "I do not have an account" /w them.

What I did instead was, I called their "customer service" 800 number & asked them if the e-mail I received was either an "ad" or was it in error, since I do not have an account w/ them.

They told me that they are investigating the matter. To not worry about it since they are just using "e-mail" addresses they steal for whatever malicious purposes, but their recommendation is to just not "click on their link" or to respond in any way to their e-mail or request. To proceed & delete the e-mail in question.

My general suggestions are,

1) Never "click" on any links in an e-mail which is not sent to you by someone you know & trust, or a web site you trust or have used before.
2) If in doubt, never "click" or accept anything, & delete the e-mail immediately. Especially, if it has anything to do w/ "banking" or "credit accounts" & then call that financial institution immediately.
3) Always delete all "ad" e-mails, unless you really want to see what they are offering, but then you are taking your chances.
4) Only transact e-mails w/ trusted people & institutions.
8-)

freeman

01-07-2005 11:16 AM

Re: Malicious e-Mails

Good advice, Jimbo.
I have encountered this same problem myself.
Online and credit card fraud is not going away anytime soon, and they are now capable of incredible counterfeitng techniques.
Just my opinion, but the authorities are incredibly lax on prosecuting these offenders. Most of the time they don't even seem to try.
Like some group is getting carte blanche to pilfer the sytem.

madkhao

03-01-2005 07:56 PM

Re: Malicious e-Mails

I have received an email from my service provider containing information on logging into my account. It was in response to a request I had made concerning this specific problem.

The only problem is that I never requested any such help nor did I have any problem logging into my own account.

My question for you all now is what type of internet security can be trusted, if any. Perhaps mine needs to be changed.

truebeliever

03-01-2005 08:50 PM

Re: Malicious e-Mails

The best security is just being EXTRA careful and vigilent.

You seem to all have that down.

I agree they seem to be pretty lax on this. I truly believe they are trying to make the net as unsafe as possible so as to offer the soloution of thumbscanning log on or some other device for control.

All details of your computers components are sent to microsoft whenever you make contact with them. Tracking an I.P is simply a matter of tracking it down no matter how many times they hide it...it always leads back to the source.

They could stop it tomorrow.

I suffered numerous problems once I began down this road in earnest after 9-11. Especially when i did some bits and peices of work for well known web sites just converting stuff to web format.

I was reformatting once every 3 months. I kid you not. My friends are XP/Linux professionals and they finally camee to the conclusion I was being professionally targetted. They could not explain my problems including a sudden blue screen and a hard drive going clunk clunk...no power supply probs etc...just died. Happened 3 times. I still have the same computer and now I have no probs.

I've had 6 months so far of trouble free computing.

I use SpyBot seach and destroy.

Zone Alarm..i highly recommend though I hear it was bought out recently by the same Israeli company that bought out the people getting info off the WTC computer hard disks so...cut off all outgoings except Generic Host Processes, internet etc... At least make them ask for permission first. You would be amazed (especially if you have ADSL) how many programs are getting on the net without your knowledge.

Use Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird.

A 4 port router.

I dont use a virus scanner. I dont open attachments except from those I know. No forwarded joke stuff etc...

Definately NO file sharing software! Sorry Bear Share. If you must, get a multi port router and a dirt cheap computer for stealing music. If it goes down it will be a simple reinstall.

Jimbo

03-01-2005 09:42 PM

Re: Malicious e-Mails

Questionable e-Mails: :-o :-o :-o

”madkhao”, if you never initiated the request for which you ended up receiving information from your ISP, then rather than responding via e-mail, I would call via phone & request to speak to a human being (a real one) & ask them if they actually sent that e-mail, was it sent in error, or is it some kind of “malicious e-mail”. Just as a “sanity check”.

Also, in addition to “truebeliever’s” suggestions,

Usually SSL (Secure Socket Layer) connections, the ones that show a little “lock” at the bottom of the page, w/ 128-bit encryption or now higher, are the most secure. However, if the connection was provided by an “impostor”, then there is no security. Also, believe it or not, these can be hacked by professional security experts, & you know who they work for. The problem w/ secure connections is that you need a secure connection at both ends. And usually, when you browse the Internet most servers are not “secured”. I have read about “Secure Browsers”, but I haven’t looked into that. And I would imagine they would only be secure w/ “secure servers". Servers are the computers that respond to your “browser’s” requests, like for example the server that handles all of the www.clubconspiracy.com Internet requests.

For my own protection, besides “SpyBot”, I use “Bazooka”. Bazooka doesn’t perform the “destroying” but it tells you how to do it manually, from which you could learn a few more tricks. It’s quick to run & update, but if you do happen to have any “spyware or adware”, then that’s going to slow you down to fix. However, I have detected “spyware” w/ Bazooka that was not detected by SpyBot.

For “virus” protection I use McAfee’s VirusScan & it’s Firewall product. With the Firewall you can block anyone trying to talk to your computer except only those applications you allow “full-access”, such as “Internet Explorer”, “McAfee”, “Outlook Express”, etc. Also the Firewall allows you to log all incoming activity to your computer & you can even trace each “event” back to the source. By selecting an option, you can also have all of these “blocked events” automatically forwarded to a site that collects all of this data, which they use to monitor world-wide activity, & perhaps detect & stop a real computer attack. Most of them are “vendors” trying to get information from the “cookies” dropped down by servers onto your computer, onto your "Temporary Internet Files", & "Temp" folders, whenever you “surf” the Web.
8-)

Thank God for "Freedom Of Speech"... An “Informed Citizen” makes a good “Patriot.”
8-)

Shadow

10-30-2007 08:15 AM

Re: Malicious e-Mails

Quote:

It's called the Storm worm. It first appeared at the beginning of the year, hidden in email attachments with the subject line: '230 dead as storm batters Europe'. The PC of anyone who opened the attachment became infected and was secretly enrolled in an ever-growing network of compromised machines called a 'botnet'. The term 'bot' is a derivation of 'software robot', which is another way of saying that an infected machine effectively becomes the obedient slave of its - illicit - owner. If your PC is compromised in this way then, while you may own the machine, someone else controls it. And they can use it to send spam, to participate in distributed denial-of-service attacks on banks, e-commerce or government websites, or for other even more sinister purposes.